ASisterhood Unique to Springfield
The 50th AnniversaryofWomen’sVarsityAthletics Part II
By Marty Dobrow, Associate Professor of Communications
ThEy ArE Two lAndMArks in ThE hisTory of woMEn’s sPorTs in AMEriCA. One came in 1997 with the launching of the Women’s National
Basketball Association—the most successful league in women’s professional sports, still going strong almost two decades later. The WNBA tipped off its inaugural season on June 21 of that year. That much-anticipated game pitted the New York Liberty with Rebecca Lobo against the Los Angeles Sparks with Lisa Leslie. Before a raucous crowd of 14,284 at the Great Western Forum in Inglewood, Calif., and a live television audience on NBC, the Liberty prevailed, 67-57. The second came just over two years later on July 10, 1999. Team
USA, the women’s national soccer team, captured the imagination of the American sporting public in unprecedented fashion. With 90,000 spirited fans jammed into the Rose Bowl, the United States pushed a powerhouse team from China into overtime and beyond. The champi- onship was decided on penalty kicks in iconic and unforgettable fashion when Brandi Chastain blasted home the winner. Unquestionably, these two games were defining moments for
women’s sports. They signified a stamp of legitimacy, an arrival on a grand stage, a cultural breakthrough. And they were alike in one other way, too. Both winning teams were coached by Springfield College gradu-
ates. The Liberty were led by Nancy Darsch ’73. The U.S. soccer squad was coached by Tony DiCicco ’70. That piece of trivia is no historical accident. Great coaching has been identified with Springfield College from the get-go. It has been
true on the men’s side since the days of James Naismith and Amos Alonzo Stagg, and it has been no less true in the 50 years of women’s varsity sports that we are celebrating during the 2013-14 academic year. (See last issue’s cover story.) That half-century has seen its fair share of change. There was the
watershed legislation of Title IX in 1972. Springfield teams have transi- tioned from the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) to the NCAA, where they have played Div. I, and II, and III. In many respects, we have seen a leveling of the playing field. No longer are women’s teams relegated to inferior basketball courts where the wall was out of bounds or softball diamonds where the dugout was some grass on the third-base line. We have seen some great teams compete at a national level and great athletes, many of whom have gone on to play prominent roles in America’s sportsocracy. Leadership of the athletic department at an institution that was once the Young Men’s Christian Association Training School has been in the very capable hands of Cathie Schweitzer since 2000. But the river that has run through it for 50 years has been
great coaching. Way back in that debut year of 1963-64, Dottie Potter Zenaty
played all four sports that were offered: field hockey in the fall, basketball in the winter, and both softball and tennis in the spring. The three coaches who oversaw those sports—Martha Van Allen DPe’66, Jone Bush G’68, DPe’70, and Diane Potter ’57, G’63—were absolute models for Zenaty. “We were being coached by some wonderful professionals,” she said. “We felt very blessed.”
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Nicole Hanewich Ross
Gail Goodspeed
Naomi Graves 15
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